When you have a very small business, or a microbusiness, you are often responsible for many tasks.

1. You are the Communications Officer, meaning you answer the phone and you answer all the emails.
2. You are often also the bookkeeper, so you must keep track of every dollar that comes in and goes out.
3. You also make all the decisions on the budget, so you are the Finance Manager.
4. Do not forget that you are also in charge of all technology, so that makes you the CIO – Chief Information Officer.
5. One of your biggest responsibilities is being the V.P. of Marketing. Not only do you have to decide which strategies to use, but you have to learn how to do them all AND figure out which are the best strategies for you and your business goals. And then you have to execute them – often all by yourself!
6. Oh yes – let’s not forget that you are also the Operations Manager and Customer Service Manager – in charge of fully servicing your clients.

These responsibilities do not fit nicely into a schedule. Your clients may need you at all different times. You will get urgent emails when you scheduled times to make phone calls, and you will get urgent phone calls when you scheduled time to work on email.

And you will get a ton of email that cries out for your attention all the time.

If you really like schedules, or if you just feel like having one is very helpful, I can offer some suggestions. Good and consistant planning is the key.

First, you must have a comprehensive, written action plan. This plan needs to include your goals, naturally, but also how you plan to achieve them along with specific actions. This must include quantities and timing/deadlines.

For example: Close 1 sale per week for at least $2,000 (goal)
Action step: Set 5 sales meeting appointments per week and close at least 1 sale; Call at least 40 leads per week to get at least 5 sales meeting appointments per week.

Next, set time aside weekly for planning. At the end of your workweek, Friday afternoons for most people, set aside about 20 minutes for planning and analysis. Take out your plan and your calendar and evaluate how your week was. Did you make your calls? Did you set appointments? Did you close sales? What else did you do well or not so well? What do you need to do next week?

After doing this quick analysis, write into your calendar for the next week exactly what you need to do. Around any appointments that are already set, block out some time for making your calls and make sure you have recorded all client and networking meetings.

This may be all you need, but many people have more complicated businesses and lives for this to work consistantly. If you are a wedding planner or real estate agent, for example, you very likely work nights and weekends. My biggest worry for you is that you work 7 days per week. Not only is this not healthy – you need at least one day off per week – but it actually leads to more disorganization.

Then there are parents. If you have children at home, especially if you are a single or only parent, sometimes your children will need you during your work hours! They will have doctor appointments, ballgames, exams and much more.

Besides those logistical interruptions, you have a responsibility to them to be a good, present parent. Make sure you have your priorities firmly in place as you plan your schedule. Also, have your expectations in line and resist the urge to compare your own success against others in your same industry. As long as you have your priorities in order, you will be happy with all of your success, and you will have the added bonus of being a great role model for your kids.

The life of an entrepreneur can be messy. Often, that is part of the appeal! It may never be the same two days in a row. Setting appropriate priorities, flexibility and good, consistant planning will keep you sane.

Copyright © 2010 Audrey Burton

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Every time you perform an activity you’ve done before… every time you think a thought that passed though your time before, you’re strengthening synapses in your brain.

These synapses create a cause-and-effect relationship between the neurons they linked. So that every time one neuron fires, the other will too. These synapses are like a bridge that connects two neurons so that signals between them may pass.

So what has this got to do with your learning and memory?

Well, these synapses are what’s responsible for your them. The more you learn the more synapses you grow and the stronger these synapses are, the better your memory is.

In this article, I will introduce you to three laws of building and strengthening synapses. Master and implement these laws and you’ll no doubt see a marked improvement in not just your learning and memory, but also overall brain function.

1. Law of association. When you learn, you learn through associations, building above what you have known to make sense of the unknown.

For example, when I explained the concept of synapses, I use the terms “relationships” and “bridge”. You’re, of course, familiar with these terms. Thus you use what are already familiar to make sense of the unknown.

Fundamentally, this is how we learn without going through an experience. This is how babies. Contrary to popular belief, we are born with certain skills and knowledge. We know how to cry when we face certain stimulus (such as hunger and discomfort), we know how to move, we know how to recognize faces. These are the basic knowledge that we all have and we build upon as we grow up.

Thus when you learn, it is often far easier to associate what you learn with what you’ve already known. You may have trouble remembering a phone number, but if you associate that number with a date and age, such as 04-08-2012 78 instead of 0408201278, then it is far easier for you to remember that number.

This is because when you remember obscure facts, memory is placed in your short-term memory. Only when intense attention is paid and constant reminder is acquired that it starts to be moved. By associating with current fats, you can almost immediately build off long term memory.

2. Law of repetition. Practice makes perfect. This is true for anything you want to learn and remember. This is because every time you practice, you’re strengthening the synapses between the neurons involved in that activity.

I can remember how clumsy I was when I first typed on a keyboard. Now I could type without looking at the keys. But if I were to change keyboards, again I would have to look at the keys and learn its distance.

This is the law of repetition at work. The good news is, only 2 hours of focused practice is required for you to maintain and remember a skill. In fact, if you spend long hours of practice only to stop later, the skills you’ve picked up at that time will fade as synapses break down.

If you want to remember what you learn, it is better that you take a more habitual approach.

3. Law of attention. Michael Merzenich, one of the world’s leading neuro-plasticity scientists observed through brain scans that neural network responsible for learning only grow when attention is paid onto the stimulus.

This is why multitasking is detrimental to learning. When you multitask, you cannot focus – thus you cannot learn. It amazes me how students attempt to study for exams while listening to music and have their chat browser open.

It is a biological impossibility.

At the same time, multitasking at work yields the same result. When you should be able to learn from an experience that you have, multitasking robs you of that opportunity.

Did you know that multitasking lowers IQ by 10 points (more than what smoking pot would) and increases stress (which in turn makes the brain release chemicals that kills brain cells)?

To learn and remember, all you have to do is focus on the stimulus, for a short period of time. 2 – 3 hours a day is normally sufficient.

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The ability to achieve rapport with anybody is an amazingly powerful skill to have. Rapport precedes influence.

When you have rapport with someone you can take the lead in the conversation. This is not to say you will be able to manipulate them. Any attempt at manipulation would rapidly lead to a breakdown in rapport. But you will more easily enable them to understand and buy into what you’re saying and why you’re saying it. Your ability to influence and persuade will be significantly increased and you will more easily be able to secure win-win outcomes.

You already know how to build rapport with another person. We all do it naturally with those we are close to or friendly with. The trick is to be able to do it with everyone even those with whom you ‘just aren’t on the same wavelength’ or ‘just don’t see things the same way’.

The next time you find yourself in a public place indulge in a bit of people watching. See if you can spot groups of people who are in rapport with one another and those who are not. You’ll notice that people who have rapport will mirror each other movements, posture and even breathing.

Another experiment is to try mirroring someone who is on their own. Take careful notice of how they are positioned, their posture, their facial expression, their breathing rate and emulate them. You will be amazed at what that tells you about how they are feeling or even what they are thinking. Of course you need to be subtle, you don’t want to upset anyone.

When you are talking with someone, mirroring is not just about body language, it also includes tone, volume and speed of speech.

Mirroring takes practice to get right. The most important thing is to avoid mimicry. If you make it obvious you will destroy rapport rather than create it.

The whole idea is to be able to see things from the other person’s side, to enter their world. When you achieve rapport they will feel that you understand them, that there is respect and trust.

You have to be flexible here. Flexibility is a cornerstone to excellent communication. You need to accept that others have a different view of the world from yours and that theirs is equally valid. You need to be interested in what that view is and in developing a common view.

When you meet with resistance in a colleague, team member or client, that is your cue to be flexible, gain rapport and establish common ground. Listen fully to what they are saying, understand what’s going on in their world.

When you have gained rapport try doing something different. Have a sip of your drink. If you’ve both been talking rapidly or loudly, slow or quieten it down. If you’ve both been leaning backwards, away from each other, lean forwards. If you are truly in rapport they will follow you. They will take a drink, slow or quieten their speech or lean forward.

Now you are leading the conversation. Now you can get to win-win.

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Are you an Action Man (or an Action Person, I suppose, to be politically correct!)? Because most of us are Reaction Men – and Reaction Women!! The normal mind is a highly-tuned, highly effective reactive mechanism. Evolutionary psychology proposes that we automatically react and behave to ordinary everyday events because we need to retain our key faculty of attention for the lion jumping out of the bushes to eat us! As if that was going to happen today!

The big problem with the manner in which our lives are driven by reactive behaviour is that, more often and not, that behaviour sets off an ongoing chain of events (a chain reaction if you will) that takes us further away from the kind of effortless happiness and success for which we all long. In other words, rather than getting your own way in life, you lose your way. Here’s how to ensure that you get what you want out of life, on your terms – because there is a wrong way to go about it (the normal way) and then, there’s The Way.

The Way (to get what you want out of life – in all its various facets, work, rest, play and pleasure) does not involve any form of habitual behaviour that saps your energy or distracts you from the important things you should be doing. Let’s take a simple example. There is no merit whatsoever in reading the inside pages of most daily newspapers that cover all the sordid details of domestic violence, sexual violence, robbery (the list is quite a long one) – because you’re simply wasting your time and energy when it could be far better spent.

The Way does not involve reactive behaviour at all. Generally speaking, when we react to something we make an already bad situation worse. Another couple of simple examples. Who amongst us has teenage children that, when screamed at (a reactive process), behave better? How many people spend their working lives “fire-fighting” when their energies would be better directed to preventing the fire in the first place? Indeed, how many people waste their time trying to put out fires that generally fizzle out on their own?

The Way does not involve entertaining or being entertained by useless thoughts. These thoughts come in all shapes and sizes – from wishing you were on the golf course (when you’re in a client meeting) to worry, frustration, self-doubt and anxiety.

The Way does involve: Meditation, A Clear and Focused Mind and Right Action. Each follows the other.

Meditation, like useless thought, comes in all shapes and sizes – from guided meditation to TM, from primordial sound meditation to unguided Vipassana. Indeed, I would contend that running or working out are forms of meditation if the mind is totally focused on the physical exercise involved. In fact, I believe that one of the most effective (but also difficult) forms of meditation is to simply sit and do nothing. The point is that “meditation” covers a multitude of all good things for the mind. Whatever form of meditation one cares to pursue, it calms the mind, diffuses the effects of useless thought and, most importantly, disciplines the mind for the rough and tumble of what follows – the normal everyday life.

Meditation’s discipline enables the practitioner develop a clarity and presence of mind that are simply not otherwise possible. This clarity and presence enables us to stop reacting and start acting – start, for perhaps the first time in our lives, to take real action, right action. With a clear and present mind, one immediately appreciates the difference between a constructive or creative thought, on the one hand, and the ravings of the normal mind, on the other. That same clarity and presence of mind enables us distinguish between time and energy wasters (both tasks and people) and those things to which we must devote our energies to be effective and efficient at what we are doing – at any particular moment in time.

Indeed, that’s what presence is – being fully (or more fully than the normal person who, research tells us, is only 1% present) present in the here and now, fully involved, fully engrossed in the task in hand – whatever the task in hand might be. This presence in the here and now doesn’t just enable us spot the important from the urgent or the vital from the superfluous – it enables us do the important and vital to the very best of our ability. That is what right action is – and there’s a world of difference between right action and reaction.

But even more than that, clarity, presence and right action lead us to a place where out abnormally high input of energy elicits a response from those around us (people positively respond to people with presence) and from the universe at large (quantum physics proves that this is very far removed from wishful thinking or fanciful hocus-pocus!) In other words, our clarity, presence and right action lead us in the direction of all the things, events and people we need to bring us towards the goals that our hearts desire. Now, that’s The Way!

Copyright © 2009 Willie Horton

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As I watch my daughter grow up, she mixes in a temper tantrum to get our attention. And, much of the time it still works. The point here is that your growing up experiences have a lot to do with the way you persuade others to purchase your product or services. And, so does your communication.

Since I’m qualified to speak about generational cultures, I want to point out that our persuasion skills are really a product of our habitual ways of thinking that have been passed down from generation to generation. I mimic mom, and she imitated her mother before her. And I taught my daughter how to speak, much like my teachers taught me. I make conscious vocal changes, but I often find myself thinking, “YIKES! I sound like my mom”. When it comes to trying to get our way, though our persuasion techniques are very similar to those of our ancestors, the world around those we communicate with has changed dramatically.

When I first learned this, I had a huge Aha! moment. My jaw dropped open, because I began to understand for the first time that some people’s skills for persuasion were very outdated. You may be a entrepreneur, manager, parent, teacher or student. Whatever your role, you are trying to communicate messages to those around you and probably doing it much like your family and friends and their ancestors and their ancestors. But consider for a moment how greatly communication with the world has changed.

Now, let’s fast forward to designing your website, getting your letterhead or business card printed. Yes, just like a child, you are still trying to persuade someone to pay attention to you. However, now that you got staff and bills to pay, you NEED to get attention, not just want to get attention. Instead of squeaking, you need to be SPEAKING! Since your competition is no longer just local, it’s global, you really need to consider getting out into the public in a big way. Look at how much assertive advertising went into Earth Hour 2008. The outgoing, friendly, global minded and confident self-employed professionals will have more success attracting clients, than the shy and timid. So, who do you want to pay attention to you?

Here are some tips from the trenches. Follow these fundamentals to discover how you may want to change your client communication and improve your existing results. To persuade prospects into becoming your clients:

- You must have deep conviction that you are the answer to their problem.

- You have to have the personality, reputation and credibility to take your message seriously. This comes from your success record.

- You have to be trained to communicate your message in front of audiences.

- You need to learn how to write in a way that clarifies your thoughts to your target market.

- You must be able to share your story, with some humor, of how the heck you got into your line of work in the first place.

Let me tell you, you will not always get your way with clients. But, by being conscious of how you communicate with clients, polishing up your presentation skills, strengthening your belief in your product or service, and developing a deep passion for what you want out of your business, you will get your way and persuade more prospects to become your clients.

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I’m writing this on the veranda overlooking the grounds, lake and woodlands of my ‘away from it all’ place. I’m spending time reading, writing, reflecting… and getting up late. I miss breakfast time but it’s totally worth the joy of not needing to be up at any particular time!

And as I write, I’m remembering a recent telephone conversation with a colleague. We were discussing living our respective passions, what stirs us, what enthuses us, what pulls us forward whether we know it or not.

And these words seem paltry compared with the sensational inside YEEESSS! you feel when you’re on track with yourself and your purpose. There’s no vocabulary for this or the certain uncertainty which accompanies you when you tread a path you’ve never trod before… yet you know ‘this is it’!

Our conversation also reminded me of the many times I’ve said ‘NO!’ to that urging, that which captures my attention and tugs at me to follow the sign even if I don’t understand what it’s about or exactly where it’s going. The times when I’ve raised my eyes to heaven, and still do, yelling, “Haven’t I done enough already?!”

The answer is of course “No!”… Because my purpose unfolds and develops just as I unfold and develop as a person. The ways in which I can express my purpose change over time as I change and grow. So there’s always something else to be done… which is exciting!

It’s also more than just a bit flipping scary!

But when I think back to my earlier life when I stuck to the straight and narrow, did what was expected of me, behaved as I imagined I was supposed to behave… you know the rest! Although I was ‘living dead’, I was also in pain, a restlessness, a feeling and cognition that ‘there had to be more to life than this’. And of course there was and is.

So, if you sit very quietly with yourself you might just hear your own restlessness, your own inner ‘voice’ calling you to what floats your boat even if you don’t quite know what that is right now. What you’re most likely to do is to tell yourself it’s nonsense.

I remember when I wanted to do a degree my ex husband saying to me that I should have thought about that before I got married. And that’s one of the kind of excuses you can give yourself… that it’s too late, it’s not the right time as if there’s ever a right time! or who do you think you are to be different… or even “Who me?! I can’t do that.”

And even when you know your purpose and passion, you can still trick yourself by using the same old cruddy excuses. I know because I can still do that to myself sometimes!

However, the truth is following your passion, being successful at what you be-do, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to overthrow your current life at all… or if you want to that it has to be done in one almighty tumultuous crisis. Although of course that’s up to you!

What it does mean is you start living dangerously exactly from the point where you are in your life right now. You get a sense that there’s something for you to be-do in the world, however small or large that is. Whether that’s growing African Violets or nurturing your children or becoming the next Anita Roddick… or all three!

And despite the scariness, I promise you you’ll feel skin prickingly alive if you do… trusting the not-knowing and how little by little, if you don’t already know them, it’ll show you your passion and your way forward… for now!

Here are some questions to start juicing up your purpose and passion…

#1 What billboard attracts your attention and what message does it give you?

#2 What subjects did you love at school… even if you didn’t pursue them?

#3 What are you doing when you feel most alive and enthusiastic?

Look for the theme or themes running through your answers and you’re right on track for uncovering your own purpose and passion!

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When we are stressed our bodies go on alert and hold on to tension and fatigue. I have researched many ways to help me to relax and de-stress and I found three simple techniques that really helped me, and I hope they help you too.

De-stressor No 1 – Body Attention

Martial arts and yoga practitioners know that where you focus your attention in the body has a big effect on how you feel. It is known as centering and this is how you do it:

• start by standing up in a relaxed fashion, with your feet parallel and about shoulder width apart
• place one of your hands over your stomach so that the index finger is directly over your navel, now look down to where your ring finger is resting and imagine a point at that level right in the middle of your body. In the martial arts traditions this is the centre of power in your body and is known as the tan-tien in the Chinese tradition.
• relax your eyes and let your eyes soften and go into peripheral vision
• allow your body to relax, and make sure your knees aren’t locked
• keep your attention focused on that central point inside your body and continue to breathe easily and naturally – don’t force it
• notice where you are holding tension in your body and just calmly direct your attention to that point and keep breathing.

This level of focus on your body will help you to block out worry, panic and fear. It is also very useful to practice if you suffer from anxiety or panic attacks. You can use it anywhere because the point is in the focus inside the body, you don’t have to be standing still or sitting, Just allow your attention to go 100% to that spot and breathe naturally and easily to help you relax.

De-stressor No 2 – Forming a protective shield

If things seem to be just too much for you to cope with and the thought of coping with just one more thing is unbearable, then this technique can be helpful to distance you from the confusion and chaos that goes on in the outside world. It might seem a little strange, but it does work, so try this:

• imagine that you are sitting in the centre of a clear bubble which is acting as a protective shield between you and the outside world.
• the bubble is transparent so you can see what is going on, but it is also very, very strong so that everything stressful that happens outside just bounces off and away from you.
• as you are safe inside this bubble you are able to stay calm, and relaxed. In fact, the more stressful it is outside, the calmer you are inside.

This exercise works because your unconscious mind doesn’t distinguish between imagination and ‘reality’. This means that if you imagine you are shielded from stress, you will feel exactly as if you are being shielded and protected from it.

If you have to do any public speaking and are feeling nervous, this is also a great technique to heop with that. Just extend the bubble to cover the whole room and let yourself know that nothing outside can get in to disturb your concentration or upset your presentation.

De-stressor No 3 – Become detached

Sometimes in emotionally fraught situations, or if there is an argument or disagreement that is upsetting you, it can be helpful to use this very simple technique to detach or distance yourself from what is going on.

It helps you get a clearer perspective and stay calm by literally allowing yourself to detach and float above the situation. Here’s how it works:

• imagine that you are floating up and out of your body, higher and higher, as far up as you feel comfortable and where you are able to look down on yourself.
• what you will notice is that the higher up you float, the more detached and calm you will feel.
• stay ‘above’ the situation until you feel comfortable enough to gently come back down to earth and releasde yourself fully into the moment.

These are three simple techniques that you can try anytime. I hope they are as effective for you as they have been for me in dealing with stress.

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We can busy for the whole of our waking hours. This is particularly true in professional life when it seems there are not enough hours in the day. While it is important to get things done, it is counter-productive to just bash on regardless.

If you were climbing a mountain – and sometimes work feels just like that! – you would pause sometimes to check your bearings. Are you still heading the right way? Circumstances could have changed since you started the climb – have you taken them into account?

While we can’t reflect on everything that happens, it is critical that we do reflect. Only then can we see what is working well and what we need to do differently.

You may know the story from Stephen Covey about the woodcutter who was having a really tough time felling a tree. When asked why he didn’t stop and sharpen the saw, he replied that he didn’t have time for that!

To use a more modern analogy, if you were to take your car on a long journey you wouldn’t ignore the fuel gauge. You’d stop when necessary to fill up so as to avoid breakdown on the road. Stopping gets you to your destination quicker.

In the Story of Creation, after six busy days even God takes time on the seventh day to reflect. Here is the origin of the traditional ‘day of rest’ which points to the wisdom of having regular times to reflect.

The challenge is, of course, to find time in a busy schedule. So look closely because the time may already be there – you may just need to recognise it. Here are 10 suggestions to get you started:

* a particular part of your travel time

* a regular walk within the building or around the workplace

* your morning coffee break

* a few minutes at your desk at certain time(s) of day

* part of your lunch break away from the workplace

* a weekly slot booked in your diary

* a session with a coach

* simple meditation at home

* time with a buddy

* writing a daily journal

Fortunately reflection time can be as little as a few minutes. Whatever the duration, it is useful to have a structure you can follow. For example, Tim Gallwey offers his STOP tool in ‘The Inner Game of Work’. It has 4 stages (one for each letter of the word STOP):

1. Step back

Move your attention outside the current activity. On the mountain, this would be the moment to pause to consult the map.

2. Think

Gallwey says “There is a shift in the thinking gears [ ] to either rest or engage in a different level of thinking”. When climbing the mountain, the single mental focus on upward movement broadens to checking direction, well-being, resources, weather and so on.

3. Organise Your Thoughts

This is the ‘so what?’ from your thinking. This is particularly useful where you have been thinking creatively and need to pull your thoughts together. What actions arise? What’s next on the mountain?

4. Proceed

Reconnect with your task – resume climbing – refreshed and bringing new insights and strategies.

You can use STOP whenever you want to but you will get the most benefit when you make it habitual and therefore automatic. Then you don’t have to rely on pure will-power (which may be not entirely reliable!)

Start with a short regular time, say five minutes. As you see the benefits, you can step up to longer or more frequent levels. Build the STOP habit into your week and reach your goals quicker!

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